"I think I will go, Charlotte, and take off my travelling things. I am as dusty as I can be." "Do so, mamma. Your old room. Prance will not be long." Prance was entering the house even then: she had brought Georgy in the back way. There was a boisterous meeting; Mrs. St. John coming out to join in it. Georgy chattered, and shook his fair curls from his pink cheeks, and was altogether lovely. Mrs. Darling did not wonder at the faint cry of pain--that intense love, whose expression amounts to pain--with which his mother caught him to her heart. "Where is Benja?" asked Mrs. Darling of Prance. Oh, Master St. John would be coming in sometime, Prance supposed. Honour had begun with her insolence, as usual, so they parted company. And Mrs. Darling, as if she would ignore the words, made her way hastily towards the staircase, Prance following in attendance. Mrs. Darling scarcely gave the woman time to close the chamber-door before she began to question her eagerly. Remember that Prance was, so far as Mrs. Darling was concerned, a confidential servant, and she imparted all she knew. Mrs. St. John was to remain at the Hall as Master St. John's guardian, with four thousand a-year. "I heard the will read," said Prance. "Old Drake the lawyer came to us after they returned from the funeral, and said we were wanted in the large drawing-room. Mrs. St. John was there in her new mourning and her widow's cap; and she looked very cross and haughty as we filed in. The gentlemen who had gone to the funeral were there, and Dr. Graves, and Mr. Pym. I had the little one, and Honour came in with Master St. John----" "Why do you call him Master St. John?--he was always called Master Benja," interrupted Mrs. Darling. "He has been called so since that same time, ma'am," was the woman's answer. "A gruff old gentleman who was one of the mourners, upright and stiff as a backboard and yellow as gold--it was General Carleton, I believe--heard one of us call the boy Master Benja, and he spoke up very severely, saying he was not Master Benja, but Master St. John, and must be nothing else to us until he should be Sir Benjamin. The servants were quite taken to, and have called him Master St. John ever since." "Well, go on." "We found we had been called in to hear the will read. I did not understand it altogether; but I am quite certain that Mrs. St. John is to reside at the Hall and to be paid four thousand a-year as the heir's guardian. There was something I was unable to catch, through Master Georgy's being troublesome at the moment, about the four thousand being reduced to two if Master St. John went away. And, on the other hand, it is to be increased by two, whenever he comes into the title and the other estates. Which will make six thousand a-year." "Then what did you mean, Prance, by sending me word that your mistress was annoyed at the terms of the will? Four thousand a-year now, and six in prospective! She cannot find fault with that. It is munificent."